


A True Name

by iKnowTheWay



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Breastfeeding, Emotional Manipulation, F/M, Family Dynamics, Gen, Infant Death, Miscarriage, R plus L equals J, Starvation, winter came early
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-09
Updated: 2017-08-19
Packaged: 2018-12-13 06:00:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 19,635
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11753535
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/iKnowTheWay/pseuds/iKnowTheWay
Summary: The one in which Catelyn makes a vow to The Seven regarding Jon SnowBut it’s the Old Gods who intend on making her keep it.





	1. Winter I

**Author's Note:**

> This note is just here to forewarn you about two things:  
> -Grammar and tenses are my achilles heel ( heels?? send help!)  
> -I did not read the books  
> 

Winter had come.

With no warning. The white sheet had rushed in like the silk train of a hurried bride’s wedding dress and suddenly settled on the floor that was the northern lands. It had come before the white ravens were sent which meant even the Citadel hadn’t anticipated it.

The last winter Catelyn had lived through she had been a young girl in Riverrun. Thinking back on it now, the white powdery dusting of snow across the grasslands could hardly be called a winter.

Not like this bitter biting cold. Stepping outside was nearly a death sentence. And she supposed it was only the people’s commitment to living by the promise of the Stark words that Winterfell survived at all. They lived off of the stores of a short harvest, rationing food to the extreme.

People starved inside the castle as easily as they did in Wintertown. 

They’d not received a raven in nearing three moons.

“Too cold for the birds to fly,” Maester Luwin had explained in that even tone of his despite looking older and stressed. His words only ached Ned. He was the Warden of the entire North and yet he had no idea of what was happening outside his castle walls.

People were dying every night. Many of the smallfolk that they’d allowed inside if only to preserve them, had been lost. 

Catelyn ran a hand softly through Robb’s hair. Her sweet boy. Her only child. She was awake only because of the flood of warmth that she’d felt in her sleep. For a moment she blushed in shame, fearing she had made water in her sleep. Instead she woke to find blood seeping between her legs. She’d felt no physical pain which did nothing to assuage the pain in her heart at losing yet another babe.

She did not bother to wake Ned and tell him. They, her son and her Lord husband, were both sleeping easily enough and she would not wake them only to disappoint them as they shared in her failure.

There was little to be done. She wasn’t eating enough. Barely enough for one. Not nearly enough for two.

Three babes. The first had made itself known not long before Winter set in. The stress had been too much and she’d delivered at only six moons. The brutal opening to the Winter, they had lost many, ravens had run rampant detailing massive loss of life, including her own child. The babe, a boy lived for two days with haggard breathing, a small thing that could fit in her palm. Ned had been there through the short and ineffectual birth. He’d said a soft prayer for their dead babe to the Old Gods. 

She had cried too long and hard to even choke out a prayer to the Stranger and the Mother. Ned had taken that up as well, despite not worshipping them, he had learned all the prayers of the Seven during his time in the Eyrie. And he’d heard the Stranger’s prayer for lost souls often enough on the battlefield.

The second she lost whilst taking a bath. The pain had been great. She had just told Ned about the new babe the day before and in their exuberance had lain together. When she lost it he had not been able to hold her gaze for a sennight, fearing he was at fault until Maester Luwin had explained. 

This last one had only been two moons gone in her womb and she hadn’t even noticed the pain.

She hadn’t told Ned she carried. Nor had the Maester examine her. Perhaps... had she made it another moon.

She felt a horrid woman. A horrid mother, thankful she’d been pregnant if only to keep her supply of milk active for Robb. Robb who was fully child and being fed milk from his mother’s breast again to save the scarce solid foods for the adult men and women.

The bed creaks and she feels Ned’s sigh as he awakens. She hadn’t moved, concealing the sticky liquid beneath her. Her husband’s chaste lips across her shoulder makes her tense before he rises. With his back turned she chances a look at him. He’s gaunt. He wobbles a bit as he takes a step and it angers her. He still has duties despite the cold that now sweeps through the castle. But he’s not eating enough either to keep his energy.

Mainly because of that _boy_.

The woman that had been nursing her own babe and had taken to nursing Jon had perished a moon before. There wasn’t any other woman to act as the bastard’s wet nurse, most caring for multiple babes or children already, so Ned began sharing his own food with the boy.

It had insulted Catelyn. That the bastard ate solids, from her Lord Husband’s own plate and his trueborn son relegated to drinking mother’s milk like the smallfolk.

But it was foolish of her to carry the anger. She knew he would not simply watch the boy starve.

Ned throws on his shirt and cloak and as he steps into the hall she sees him stagger again.

He’s too weak.

When the sound of his steps disappear down the corridor, she is quick to move. Barely disturbing Robb, she removes the stained furs and sheets from the bed and drops them in a pile for her maids. She hastily replaces them and tucks a still slumbering Robb back in. She cleans herself and readies for the day though she slinks back to Robb’s side for a moment.

Standing, she catches sight of herself in the vanity mirror. Her dress is ill fitting, the material hanging off of her nearly emaciated body. Her once beautiful auburn hair is neat but dull in color. She grabs a strand and sees its split at the end. Her skin is pale and the only thing about her that could be considered plump are her breasts. She tries to smile but it doesn’t reach her blue eyes, giving the impression that she is simply gritting her teeth.

How she ever thought this body could carry a child she knows not. She grabs a cloak for warmth but mostly to cover the sight of her body wasting away from others’ eyes. Vanity aside, she is still Lord Stark’s wife and the Lady of Winterfell. She still has her duties.

She knows what she _must_ do even if she really doesn’t _want_ to.

Stepping into the hall she’s hit with the unwelcome cold air. The springs that warm the rooms are nearly overcome by this winter’s cold. Rooms had to be consolidated in order to give greater warmth to smaller areas. It was why Robb now slept with his mother and father.

She grabs a servant on her way to a colder hall. She hesitates only a moment before stepping into the room she sought out.

It’s cold, almost as cold as the hall. On the small bed is a mound of furs as she steps closer she notices the steady vibrating movement.

“Cora,” she asks to the servant. “Does he normally shiver like this?”

“Lord Stark asked us to place as many furs as could be spared-”

“Cora-”

“Yes, my Lady.” Cora was a young thing. Dark hair with a skin tone just a shade too dark to be considered northern. She had hailed from White Harbor but being the port that it was, she could hazard a guess that her blood harbored foreign lineage as well. She may have blended in the Manderly’s domain but here she stood out. Catelyn would not be surprised if her difference was what led to her being the designated keeper for the boy.

The bastard was shivering almost uncontrollably in his sleep. He slept in his cloak, most likely an older one that he’d outgrown by the look of it, and half a dozen furs but still nothing chased away the chill.

“Snow.”

She speaks but gets no response. Frowning, she repeats it louder and his eyes open slowly. It takes only a moment for them to widen when he sees who it is in his room.

“La-Lady Stark,” his teeth are chattering as he tries to lift the heavy furs off of him. He slides off the bed to his feet keeping most still wrapped around his body. “Pardon. Good morning Lady Stark.”

He fumbles through greetings, glancing up then down at his feet and she allows it considering he’s probably not fully awake.

“How many springs run to this room?”

“None directly,” Cora answers promptly, “they were shared with Lord Robb’s room. We kept two running to the young Lord’s room for some heat here.” Catelyn looks around, there’s no fireplace in this room having been converted from servants quarters. It was meant to house Robb’s future personal servant or squire. For now, it served as the bastard’s frozen bedchamber.

Not that a fire could do much. Most small fires were quickly overwhelmed and snuffed out.

“I want them redirected to the colder servants quarters.”

“My Lady?” The servant is staring at her curiously. She ignores the bastard looking up at her. “Both of them?”

“You heard me. And,” she grabs at one of the ratty furs he left discarded on the bed in mild disgust. “Wash and distribute these as needed. Make sure the boy’s clothes are packed up as well.” 

Cora hesitates only a moment before curtseying and doing as she is bid. Neither women look at the boy. Catelyn inspects the room as Cora strips the many layers off of him. 

The boy’s belongings are sparse, the most of his non-essentials being gifts from his Lord Father that Catelyn only learned about after the fact. She does spot something of interest, a wooden carving atop his lone dresser. It was a misshapen, ugly thing but she remembered Robb had made one as well, when Luwin had taken them down to the carpenter for one day in lieu of regular lessons. They had both attempted to carve wolves but the bastard had not the natural talent for it unlike her Robb and the neck had been made too curved and the snout too long. The bastard settled for calling it a dragon, Robb had told her, though Catelyn assumed it was to cover his mistakes. Robb’s had been lost or broken some moons back but clearly the bastard had no shame in keeping his monstrosity.

A subtle cough from Cora pulls her from her musings. The bastard says nothing, still looking at the floor and rubbing his now chilled arms. Satisfied she signals him to follow her with a snap of her fingers.

The boy is silent save for his smaller footsteps as he trails behind Catelyn. Arriving at her room she smiles to see Robb having just woken and rubbing the sleep from his eyes. She reaches the bedside.

“Good morning, sweetling.” Robb is quick with hugs mumbling a response into her neck. 

“Jon?” he asks brightly and it’s only then she realizes the bastard has yet to enter the room. “Jon, what’s wrong?” The concern in Robb’s voice is what forces her to look at him. 

The bastard is standing there silent, a steady stream of tears running down his face. For a moment Catelyn pities him. She has never seen a child cry in silence. But the boy does it, so like Ned with his dark curls falling over his eyes and he keeps his head down and shoulders slumped.

Robb crawls off the bed quickly before running to him. Just as quick to hug the bastard as if he was his own true brother. He tries to coax an answer from the bastard but he just shakes his head. Robb turns and looks to her as if expecting her to do something about the moody child.

“Come inside, both of you and close the door.” The heat is escaping and she has little time for the bastard’s tears. Had he a nightmare he was recalling? That was Ned’s responsibility. Robb is quick to pull his brother through the threshold though he makes no further movement inside after the door is closed behind him.

“I don’t want to die, Robb.”

It’s almost too soft. Die? A nightmare then.

“You’re not going to-”

Suddenly the bastard pulls out of Robb’s hold and falls to his knees.

“Please Lady Stark I’ll work if I must. I’ll do anything-” she’s taken aback at his addressing her in such a pleading voice. “Anything you wish, please don’t put me out. I don’t want to freeze to death! Please-”

Before Catelyn can even understand what the boy is blubbering about her own son jumps in.

“Mother! Jon can’t be put out! It’s too cold! Don’t kill Jon!” _Kill Jon? What was he on about?_ ”I’ll help him work! We’ll be good!”

“Stop it! Both of you!” She snaps which only leaves both boys crying and hugging each other though only Robb is actually weeping. It’s only then that Catelyn realizes how the little fool must have mistook the morning. “Why do you think you are going to die, Snow?”

He breathes in a shuddering breath that’s more a silent sob.

“You had Cora turn off the springs. I know other people need them but can I stay with the servants at least? Please I’ll-”

“Stop it.” Though the idea is intriguing, her mind was made up. “You’re not to die, boy. At least not yet.” Not that she hadn’t asked it of the gods before when he was younger. “You’ll stay in here from now on. To consolidate the heat in the castle.”

The twin looks of shock and confusion are almost humorous. Almost.

“Cora will have your clothes moved _here_. You will bathe _here_.” She swallows before continuing, her throat having dried. “You will _sleep,_ here.”

The bastard looks confused but Robb wipes his tears, facing brightening quickly.

“Jon!” He throws his arms around the bastard’s shoulders. “We’ll all be together!”

The bastard however does not share in his enthusiasm though fortunately he has stopped his tears.

“Thank you, Lady Stark,” he says getting to his feet, barely noticing Robb’s grip on him. 

“And another thing,” she starts knowing this is the hardest part for her and she curses herself for ever making that promise to the gods to save the boy. “You’ll not eat from Lord Stark’s plate anymore.”

“Mother,” Robb cries out indignant, “he’ll starve!” 

“He will not.” She reaches up to her back to undo the laces of her upper bodice. “Lord Stark requires all of his food and then some. You will eat as all the other children do.”

“My wet nurse died, my Lady,” he says somberly lowering his gaze even more. She wonders if he’d grown close to the dead woman and her child.

“I am aware. As you will be staying with us it is only logical you share with Robb.” She loosens the last lacing quickly pushing down her dress to free her breasts. Both boys and the children in the castle had grown used to this, knowing it was now the normal way to feed the non working children. “Come now, I am certain you need to break your fast.”

The bastard looks puzzled as if she has proposed an impossible riddle for his childish mind to solve.

“My Lady, is this not improper-?”

“ _Do not speak to me of propriety, bastard!_ ” she snaps insulted that a child of ill make would dare to question her. “Now, you will feed or you will starve. It matters not to me but you will not eat of my Lord husband’s rations.”

Robb stays silent watching curiously between his bastard brother and his mother.

The boy walks slowly and Catelyn sees it as akin to one walking to the gallows or as if he fears her mother’s milk might produce poison.

Finally he stands before her, gulping heavily. With Catelyn not bending in the slightest to give him easier access, he struggles between tilting his head up and keeping his gaze on the floor or rather away from her. Robb notices his plight.

“Get on the bed, silly,” Robb teases him now joining them and giving the bastard a boost. Now on his knees, Catelyn remains ramrod straight counting down the moments before she feels as if she’s violated her own dignity.

His light finger touch is cold and causes her to hiss in displeasure. He pulls his hand back quickly. Then he leans forward, lips puckered, maintaining his balance on his knees.

“Do not bite,” she warns just before he latches onto her left nipple.

She shivers in disgust but remains still as the bastard takes his fill. Robb sits beside him smiling at the act in wonder. Even so young he recognizes the change that this is. Unbidden, she feels a flare of warmth encompass her if because her only child might find a bit of joy in the cold world they’ve found themselves. It is easier, keeping her eyes on Robb, it helps her to forget who it is that suckles from her.

The bastard pulls back, quickly wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. She’s certain he’s not drank enough but she would rather it be over quicker.

“You may feed after Robb twice a day,” she says as Robb takes his place and drinks from her right breast. “If you do not show, I will not be responsible for finding you.”

“Thank you, Lady Stark,” he says again, this time less despondent.

Ned is understandably confused and concerned when he returns to their room only to find both his sons on the floor playing together.

The arrangement however has him peppering kisses over her, gracious, and she allows it if only to lessen the guilt she feels about keeping secret the child she’d just had the servants wash away with the sheets.

Maester Luwin is surprised when he comes to grab Robb for his lessons and finds Jon as well. He ushers the boys to his temporary quarters with an unasked question in his eyes.

Though tired most likely due to blood loss and feeding both boys, she still has duties to keep the castle running, though they have lessened she makes it her business to check in on their guests and servants, make sure rations haven’t been exhausted and that the ill and dying are tended.

Though not a septa in the slightest, some of the families take heart to see their Lady praying for their departed family members’ souls. 

“You may pray to the Seven, my Lady,” a sweet albeit dirtily clothed child said to her. She had two younger siblings cuddled to her as Cat sat with them and their grandfather who was giving up his last breaths. The elderly did not weather the cold well. Most having been lost in the initial onslaught. But as food grew scarce and warmth even scarcer the few left seemed to go in the night.

“Does your family keep the Seven?” It was extremely rare to find a northerner that didn’t worship the Old Gods.

“No, milady, but I know you do.” Cat gives her a grim smile.

“You’re quite thoughtful, child. But I know a prayer simple enough for the Old Gods to appreciate.” It earns her a genuine yet teary smile. The three children go to their knees surrounding their grandfather’s bed as Catelyn begins to pray aloud softly.

She leaves soon after the man pats his eldest granddaughter’s hand and gives up his ghost.

The servants are basically self managed now, Catelyn needing to check in with the most senior of them for status each day.

Ned sometimes leaves the castle, a dangerous pursuit though he bundles himself and takes an entourage of men to share body heat as he checks on Wintertown.

She returns to their rooms much later in the evening, darkness having already fallen and the boys already back in the rooms. Robb and the bastard have created a fort of blankets and furs and for a moment Catelyn fears they are the soiled blankets from the morning. They are not and she breathes a sigh of relief alerting them to her presence.

“Good evening, Mother,” Robb greets, poking his little head out from the fort. The bastard steps from behind the chair holding up part of the fort.

“Good evening, Lady Stark,” he says demurely.

“Good evening, Robb,” she answers, carrying her small plate of food to the bed. Robb eyes it greedily but says nothing. He’s long since learned not to beg from her plate once she explained that she would not be fit to feed him if she could not keep her own energy up. But she knew he tired of his liquid only diet.

His loss of baby fat concerned her but he was no worse than most the other children.

Her gaze sidles to the bastard who despite having eaten some solids is even smaller than Robb. 

The boys lose interest in her dinner and go back to playing in their fort. Her dismal dinner is finished quickly and she hardly feels the hunger abate. It’s ever present, though her shame has lessened at constantly hearing the rumble of her empty belly in the presence of company. Everyone is near starving. Everyone’s stomach grumbles. 

Everyone is tired but they still do their duty to the best of their ability.

“Robb,” she says placing her plate down on a side table and sitting against the headboard.

Robb needs no more explanation, as he quickly scurries out from the fort and climbs onto the bed. Unlike the morning he situates himself in her lap, her arms coming around him snuggly. He doesn’t hesitate as he begins to suckle on her right teat. 

Catelyn sighs, content to be feeding her son. Feeling at home and warm despite the cold. Her mind drifts not thinking on anything but only feeling. It’s a comfort, some base instinct she supposes that makes this feeling, this duty of feeding her son as being the most important. The highest necessity. The most...purposeful.

Only once he’s finished does she come back to herself and remember she cannot simply drift off into contented sleep with Robb in her arms.

The bastard, ever quiet has moved towards the bed though he has not climbed up. He hesitates as if he expects her to have changed her mind since the morning.

“I’ll not wait all evening, Snow,” she says her voice cold as she reluctantly releases her son. He scoots away as the bastard scrambles up. He’s smart enough to know he will not receive the same comfort as his half brother. On his knees he leans forward-”The other one.”

He had gone for the same breast. It’s unfortunate she now thinks of her left one as being tainted.

If she survives this winter and gives Ned more babes, she’s certain none of her children shall ever suckle from the left again.

Again the bastard stops drinking before taking his fill. So be it, she thinks and his mouth is barely removed before she begins to conceal herself again. Robb, knowing it’s time for sleep immediately starts to snuggle into the blankets on the bed. 

The bastard slips off the bed to the side and goes toward the fort.

Robb rustles again scrambling off the bed to follow.

“Robb,” she calls him, bewildered, before his feet even touch the ground. “It’s time to sleep, not to play.”

“I wish to sleep with Jon, Mother.”

The bastard has already hidden away amidst the blankets and she realizes the fort was meant to be his bed.

“Nonsense, you will sleep here in the warmth with your mother and father.” Her son’s pout is adorable but she hasn’t the energy to try and placate him. Though it’s on the tips of his lips to ask, he doesn’t ask the bastard to join them, thankfully. He’s under the blankets in moments cuddling up to her side.

“Will you tell us a story?”

“What would you like to hear?”

“Can you tell us about the Ice Dragons?”

Catelyn stiffens a bit at the request.

“I’m not sure I can do that story its proper justice as Old Nan can.” He pouts his lip again as if to beg but she cuts him off. “What if I told you one about a brave Prince? Would you like that?”

“Does he fly an Ice Dragon?”

Thinking quickly she says, “No, but he rides a strong stallion he calls, Dragon. Will that suffice?”

Robb nods quickly and she begins the story, weaving details as she goes and massaging a thumb through her son’s auburn curls.

By the time Ned joins them, she’s nearing the end of the tale and Robb is fast asleep. Ned says nothing but smiles at them both, exhaustion still evident in his eyes. He comes to her side of the bed and leans down to kiss her softly. He leans down and does the same to Robb’s forehead, he doesn’t stir. Then she watches as he goes to do the same to his bastard.

The bastard who has not yet fallen asleep.

“Good night Lord Father,” he says sleepily and she watches as the tuft of black hair shifts with his movements. “Good night, Lady Stark,” he mumbles but she can’t bring herself to say anything in response. “Thank you... for the story…”

Then there’s silence as she hears the lightest of snores come from him, only a slight stutter in his breathing.

Ned gets into bed trading quick stories about their day but he too falls asleep soon leaving Catelyn staring ahead in the darkened room.

Only then as her family sleeps does she let the grief consume her and the tears fall.


	2. Winter II

The exhaustion from the day before and her own grief kept her abed longer the next morning. She wakes to find Ned ready for the day and on his knees helping to bundle up Robb who’s sitting sleepily on the edge of the bed. A soft chuckle escapes her lips when she sees her son’s head lull to the side.

“I did not mean to wake you, my Lady.” Ned offers her one of his brief ghost like smiles.

“I needed to rise,” She then realizes that he must be ready to take their son. “He has not eaten yet.”

“I had thought to-”

“No, my Lord,” she protests knowing by the look in his eyes what he intends to offer. “You share your rations with no one again. I will feed our son.” 

It’s more difficult with all the layers he wears but Robb still snuggles as close he can to drink. It is in the middle of this that they receive a knock at the door. Ned goes to answer it.

“Apologies, my Lord, my Lady,” it’s one of the servants that tends to Luwin, “the Maester says a raven made it to the gates. It’s dead but it was found in a snow drift. He suggested you both come to see it.”

Intrigued, Catelyn quickly finishes feeding Robb before throwing on a cloak. 

“Send someone to stay with my son,” Catelyn commands and the servant offers herself instead. Ned escorts her to Luwin’s rooms. “If a raven made it, that’s a good sign isn’t?”

“Perhaps,” is all her Lord husband says. Catelyn is determined to keep her optimism up. When they reach the rooms, Ned steps inside first.

“Lord Stark,” he spots her entering next. “Lady Stark. It is good to see you both.”

“A raven made it to the gates?”

“It did. Though it was found dead. I believe it to have been buried under the snow so it’s hard to tell how long it’s been there but the letter it carried appears to still be intact.” Luwin hands the letter to Ned.

Ned glances at the seal then towards her.

“It’s from the Last Hearth.” He reads it quickly, his brow furrowing more and more. “Greatjon Umber is still alive.” He hands it to her. “They seem to have taken similar measures to ourselves in surviving the winter.”

But will it be enough, she wonders.

“What is the likelihood of sending a raven back?”

“Presumably harder for us,” the Maester answers grimly. “Last Hearth is further North so I would hazard they are that much colder. The raven would have been flying south, into slightly warmer temperatures and still did not survive it.”

Catelyn understood that trying to send one further north would be for naught. Still she could see that any news had comforted Ned extremely despite it carrying no more hope than their current situation.

News from a bannerman prompted the three to wonder on the affairs of their other houses. Catelyn thought that maybe the Houses further south were in better shape. Ned speculated on White Harbor being so near to the sea, might have an easier time accessing fresh food supply.

They stayed nearing an hour before Ned was needed elsewhere and Catelyn decided to begin her duties.

She returned to an empty room at the end of her day. Ned had taken Robb around with him, in lieu of his lessons with Maester Luwin. It was still a bit too early for supper so she decided to take a bath, having not had time in the morning. It wasn’t until she exited the washroom that she noted the newly folded blankets on the floor between the desk and chairs.

The servants had folded the boys’ fort.

It was at that moment she realized she hadn’t seen the bastard all day. 

Were she not a lady she would have swore under her breath. Instead she sucked air sharply through her teeth in annoyance.

She quickly threw on a robe proper enough for her to wear in the halls and a cloak over top. She stepped into the hall outside her chambers to find a servant.

“Did my Lord husband take his sons today?” 

The servant, a woman that had once been in service to Ned’s younger sister, thought for a moment before answering.

“I saw him not too long ago with Lord Robb, my Lady.”

“And the other one?”

“I did not see him-”

“Fetch Cora please.”

The woman leaves with due haste abandoning Catelyn to her own thoughts. She’s not worried she’s just annoyed. And embarrassed because her breasts had been tender and it was because Robb had fed too quickly and she’d forgotten to feed the bastard in the morning.

Ned would certainly hate her for shirking her duty after only a day.

Cora appears soon enough though winded.

“Have you seen Jon Snow?”

“He went to lessons with Maester Luwin but I have not found him since then.”

Found?

“You were looking for him?”

“I…” Catelyn gives her a hard look prompting her to speak quickly. “He was hungry so I tried to find someone-”

“Come with me, we will search for the child together.” Again she’s embarrassed mainly because she had made it her duty to feed him. Who forgets to feed a child? They searched in silence though Catelyn stole glances at the young servant girl that walked just a step behind her, wondering if she was silently judging. Would she go back to the other servants and gossip about her? Of course she would, it’s what servants do. They must think her a horrid Lady of Winterfell.

It does not take long to find him surprisingly. He’s in the colder part of the castle where the boys rooms were. It’s even colder than the day before with the springs no longer being used. He’s in a mound of furs shivering with the window cracked open.

“Close the window, Snow!” she cries out startling him badly enough to make him drop what was in his other hand. It hits the floor with a clank

He turns and bows his head then quickly shuts the window with Cora’s help. The brief feel of the fresh bitter cold has her pulling her cloak tighter and she doesn’t understand how the bastard handled it for however long he had been standing there.

“What is the meaning of this?” Raging already as she didn’t want to have to search for him. It was not what she was meant to do and she was already regretting this arrangement. 

“I was just-”

“Speak up!”

“I was thirsty.”

It doesn’t make sense to her but then she sees he’s holding snow in his right hand and there’s a bowl most likely stolen from the kitchens on the floor at his feet. The object she heard him drop. It’s half filled with barely melted snow.

Her own shame flares up but she keeps her voice steady.

“I fear I was remiss in my duties,” she says and it’s as a close an apology as he’ll ever receive. “You’ll feed now. And do not open these windows again.”

The bastard mumbles a response but Catelyn is already leading him out of the room. He hears Cora whisper something to him but she doesn’t hear his response. When they reach the bed chambers, thankfully, they’re still empty. Cora closes the door behind them after offering to bring up Catelyn’s supper.

Catelyn strips of her most outer layers and sits on the bed catching a bit of the bastard’s forlorn look at the folded blankets that used to be the fort.

“Hurry, Snow.”

He does, quickly shedding off three layers. And climbing into the bed. When he latches she hisses because he’s a bit too rough but then he lessens. She can tell he’s very hungry by the way his small hands continually clench and unclench from fists. And how his tongue pushes impatiently at the underside of her teat as if trying to coax the milk from her body faster. Looking away from him, she notices that he brought the bowl with him, it sits with his discarded clothes. The sight of it angers her again but she doesn’t pull him off. 

He drinks more than he had yesterday but it is to be expected.

Cora returns with her plate and places it at the side table. She’s certain it will be the latest bit of gossip that the Lady of Winterfell feeds her husband’s bastard.

The only hope she has is that gossip cannot travel outside the castle walls at the moment.

Finally he finishes feeding and pulls away with a quick thank you. Unsure of what to do he lays out the folded covers like a pallet and covers himself head to toe so that no part of him is visible.

Catelyn proceeds to eat her dinner and pretend he’s not there.

Not soon after, Ned and Robb return and she finds herself smiling at seeing her boy speaking excitedly with his father. Ned laughs at something he says and then Robb is expending needed energy to run and dive onto the bed to hug her. Despite the chastisement on her lips it rumbles into laughter when he bounces.

“Did you have a good day, Robb?”

He nods his head up and down. 

“Father showed me the top of the crenels.”

Catelyn frowns and turns her gaze onto her husband.

“You took him outside?”

“Hardly. We stood in the doorway at the top of Luwin’s turret.” Still it was an unheated part of the castle. “Do not fret, Cat, I had him thrice bundled. And held him close for good measure.”

Still unnerved though not willing to argue further with Ned, the pair proceed to eat their dinners together on the bed whilst Robb runs to mess up the bastard’s covers.

The meal counts little more than a normal snack between true meals. But they eat it slowly to savor the meager portions. Eating on the bed is partially uncouth but they find there is wasted energy in sitting at the table to eat, freezing all the while. As odd as it sounds, Catelyn finds it almost intimate to eat in such a manner.

“Was he any trouble?” Ned asks her softly between bites. 

She’s decided to keep her mistake hidden.

“No, he was fine.”

“What’s this?” Robb asks loudly, drawing his parent’s attention and she looks horrified that he’s holding the bowl of now mostly water. “Is this snow, Snow?” Robb laughs at his own jest.

Catelyn however freezes waiting for the bastard’s answer.

He looks at her briefly, too quickly for anyone else to notice his dark eyes accusing her.

“I wanted to try and build a snowman inside,”the boy replies with a bit of a pout, “but it melted.”

Catelyn breathes out. Where had the boy learned to lie so convincingly? And to his brother no doubt?

She shakes her head. He wouldn’t possibly. Least of all for her. Maybe it was the truth and she’d misunderstood when she found him at the window. Maybe he had lied to _her_ to make her feel awful.

But she’s only fooling herself. She had heard him perfectly clear.

_I was thirsty._

She barely hears what else is said as Robb so trusting launches himself at the bastard indignant that he tried such a venture without him. It only takes a few moments for the bastard’s pallet to be completely disrupted from their tussling that dissolves into childish giggles before Ned even has to intervene.

When she feeds Robb he tries to get the bastard to follow him to the bed.

“He has already fed,” Catelyn answers for him and it strikes her that once again, she’s fed the bastard before her own son but then she realizes she has to allow it for not feeding him after Robb’s breakfast in the first place.

It is Ned’s turn to tell Robb a story. Robb falls asleep midway through no doubt more tired from spending a day with his father than a day in Luwin’s lessons. Ned however continues the story to the end. She thinks he’s not noticed Robb asleep until she hears,

“Thank you for the story, father.” 

“You’re welcome, Jon.” Ned is smiling slightly and is answered by the boy’s light snores.

“He is polite,” is all Catelyn says which is as much of a thank you as the bastard will ever get from her.

Not wanting the feelings of that day to come again, Catelyn makes sure to have Robb wake the bastard in the mornings, even on the days that Ned takes him. This sometimes results in Ned taking both boys with him, to her dismay but then she welcomes not having to share a space with the boy until Cora comes for him.

She does not forget to feed him again though Luwin does hold him in lessons long sometimes having him nearly miss her feeding Robb. She chastises the bastard, not Luwin, for it is his responsibility to make sure he attends her when Robb is feeding. 

There was one particularly cold morning, Catelyn noticed it immediately. She woke to find the bastard awake in one of the chairs. His covers still firmly wrapped around him.

She looks down and realizes there’s a frost covering the floor.

“Ned,” she gasps in surprise and he wakes at once. When he steps down he hisses pulling his feet back onto the bed. Only then does he look over.

“Jon-!” He stops, seeing the boy uncomfortably curled up in the chair. She wonders how long he’s been sitting there, most likely discomforted in his sleep by the chill of the floor.

Catelyn reaches down to touch and it’s like a sheen of ice on her finger tips. Ned is quick to grab some furs to wrap around his bare feet. He slides to the closet to grab his boots and gloves.   
Ned picks Jon up then pushes the chairs against the wall, rearranging the furs with his free hand to make a sort of half crib for him. He tucks the bastard back in as well as he can then puts the boy’s boots at the foot of one of the chairs. Ned fetches her and Robb’s boots and places them near to the bed.

Wrapping in a cloak himself, Ned bids them farewell to check on the rest of the castle.

It’s still very early. Robb has not stirred and she finds herself wrapping him more firmly in the blankets now that his father’s body heat is gone.

The _boy_ makes no sound but Catelyn can tell he’s not asleep. The two chairs are not comfortable. He can hardly move given how tight Ned had to swaddle him. It was meant for warmth, not comfort.

She should not care.

But then there’s a light whimpering breath that escapes him a handful of minutes after Ned leaves and her temper flares.

“I’ll not listen to that the rest of the night!”

The bastard falls silent and stills himself.

Satisfied she falls back to sleep.

Robb feeds readily. The bastard however must not have found sleep again as she feels the brush of his hair on her skin when he falls forward practically asleep as he feeds. Robb finds it hilarious when he jerks back suddenly. Until he tugs too hard and Catelyn yelps in pain, smacking him lightly to wake him.

She’s no idea if he’s fed enough when she pulls him away after the fifth time he falls asleep. She shoos him off the bed. His boots are on so he has no fear of chill from the floor. 

She does not see Ned until after supper. He looks more exhausted than usual and the frost on the floor has barely abated.

“A wall collapsed from snowfall in the room housing the hot springs,” he explains nearly collapsing his body weight onto the bed. “Three of the springs froze over night.”

Catelyn gasps.

“That’s nearly half of them,” she calculates. “Has such a thing happened before?”

It hadn’t. She remembered Brandon once telling her about the springs, that they were impervious to cold. Apparently even they too had a limit. This winter’s cold seemed unnatural.

“We dug out the snow and repaired the wall as best we could.” She knew that had to take some time. A single man could not stay out in the weather too long before the bite of frost set in. They would have had to take turns and manual labor ate up energy much faster. “I did not get to complete much of my normal work today. I will not be able to take Robb tomorrow.”

Her men fell asleep soon after that.

The next morning was much the same, the bastard appearing even drowsier and Catelyn went so far as to make Robb hold him up. It eventually turned into a game for Robb. He took to trying to tickle his sleepy half brother, or blowing raspberries on the back of his neck like Ned did on their tummies when they were babes. It did nothing but scare the boy awake for a few moments and give Robb a lazy smile. He was barely suckling and bags were starting to form around his eyes.

She thought him weak but she supposed the winter hit him more harshly. He had barely recovered from the pox when it had set in. She could not afford him to catch another sickness.

It would seem much of her life would be around keeping her husband’s bastard alive, no doubt a curse from the gods for having wished his death so many times before.

His energy hardly improved throughout the day and Catelyn grew to dread feeding the boys.

The hot springs hadn’t thawed neither had the floor of the castle. Instead they woke to yet another spring having frozen when the temporary wall cracked from the cold. Now the walls in the castle were starting to freeze over like the floor.

The bastard was sitting awake, the wall at his back too cold to lean against, his makeshift bed ruined as he tried and failed to sleep sitting up.

Ned was getting dressed to help inspect and fix the wall and Catelyn was just glaring at his sleepy bastard.

Without a word to her husband she sat up fully, slipped her feet into her boots and took the few steps to the boy. Too sleepy to even acknowledge her properly outside of an incoherent mumble, Catelyn snatched him up, furs and all. It speaks to how little weight he has.Despite her height, Catelyn is not a physically imposing woman by any means of the imagination but the bastard is not much heavier than a toddler.

“Cat-” she paid Ned no mind as she moved back to the bed and deposited the boy on the other side of Robb. Now lying in the vacant area where Ned’s body heat lingered, the boy snuggled in deeply and promptly fell asleep.

Catelyn relaxes once she hears the now familiar light snores reach her ears.

Looking up she noticed Ned still watching her with a bit of awe and gratitude. She found she both longed for and hated that look on his face.

“I hope the springs are fixed soon, Ned.”

She ignores the way he lingers when he kisses her farewell.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading!


	3. Winter III

The springs are not fixed soon. 

The materials they used to build the quick, temporary wall could not withstand the cold. The material was lighter and easier to replace, but the build-up of steam and condensation on one side reacted terribly with the severe cold on the other side, warping, freezing and caused it to shatter. The original stone could withstand such extremes so long as they kept too much snow from building upon it. So they take the longer route, building the stone wall again, piece by piece but with cold still coming in, the now four frozen springs had no hope of thawing soon.

Catelyn glares at the boy snuggled up to her own son. She wonders what crime she has committed to deserve such punishment. The Lady of a castle that threatens to freeze everyone to death. A single son and three babes lost. And she has to share a bed with her husband’s bastard son.

She wonders on the boy’s mother, wonders if the woman her husband so clearly loves more than her, has perished in the winter’s cold.

Maybe she hasn’t and the mysterious woman wonders on the son her Lord lover took from her. 

She had never had the occasion to see Ashara Dayne in person. But her beauty and liveliness had escaped the halls of King’s Landing and made their way to Riverrun and across the realm.

She wonders if any of her is in the boy, if that is indeed his mother.

She had thought it to be Wylla the mysterious wet nurse her husband had brought back with him. But Ned had not fought so hard when Catelyn promptly dismissed her once the bastard moved onto solid foods. Surely he would fight hard if not harder for the woman to stay than the son.

But no he’d only given a simple “as you wish, my Lady” and Wylla was gone.

Whomever she is, Catelyn mostly wonders why that woman’s child gets to survive whilst hers perish.

Her thoughts feel as if they will drive her to madness with the dreams that have tormented her as of late. She had thought to discuss them with Ned, but decided against bothering her Lord husband with such nonsense. Their people were suffering and dying each day and night, he certainly did not have time to deal with his wife’s night terrors. She briefly wondered asking Old Nan, but the old woman would most likely leave her even more fearful.

Still, it shook her spirit.

It always starts the same. She is outside in the godswood, next to the crying weirwood her husband so often visits, uncertain of how she got there but with the keen understanding she was searching for someone. Possibly Ned. Possibly another. The snow falls all around her, but she doesn’t feel the chill of death. Soon she hears the cries of a child. She always searches through the trees of the endless woods, her maternal instincts not allowing her to neglect one sounding so young and distressed.

She always finds the child next to a statue. She never realizes how odd it is until after she wakes, for a statue of the Mother to be erect in the middle of the godswood.

Sometimes the child looks like Robb from a distance. Sometimes the child is dark haired. Sometimes it is a girl.

On the last night she had the dream she reaches the child but when she turns him around she recoils.

“Jon?” She questions the name foreign on her tongue and sends a shiver of revulsion down her spine. She can hear him crying hysterically although his mouth is not moving. Tears run down his face but his stare towards her is level and unnaturally calm.

He holds his arms out as if wishing to be embraced but she stands up and backs away from him even as the crying intensifies in her own ears.

She searches for Ned, calls out for her husband but soon the boy lowers his arms and runs away from her, deeper into the snow fall until he disappears entirely. She knows she should chase after him, Ned would never forgive her for losing his son, but she wonders if things would be better off if he perished. When she turns to go in the opposite direction she is stopped by a woman before her. 

The statue is gone and in its place is a mirror of herself, Catelyn startles staring into her own eyes, hair full and vibrant of life as it once was, with a healthy body, and glowing skin clothed in fabric that practically shine. The snow does not touch her and there is no chill on her skin.

All at once, the hair grows dull and brittle, the body thins to an unhealthy gaunt shape even worse than what she has come to see herself now.

But it only worsens. The hair turns to grey then to white and most of it breaks and falls from her head. The skin turns a sickly pale color and is mottled in bruises and unhealed scars. Her neck opens as if sliced with a butcher’s blade and bleeds a thick black color that oozes into the crevice of her bosom. Her blue eyes pale to grey.

When Catelyn opens her mouth to scream in fright the terrifying creature before her gurgles a scream with her.

Fortunately, when she jerks awake, it is not with a shout.

She pants a few moments waiting for her heart beat to regulate and her breaths to even out. Ned and the boys are undisturbed. The remainder of her sleep is not well rested.

____

“What did you learn in your lessons today, Robb?” They are taking their supper in Ned’s solar, kept warm that he might still hold meetings. The servants are giving the bed chambers a much needed thorough cleaning.

Her son, curious child that he is, is taking his pleasure in disrupting much of the knick knacks in his father’s possession. Catelyn allows him to humor himself for a few moments before pressing the question.

“Robb?”

“We learned about Harrenhal,” he says distractedly picking up a strange steel mold from his father’s shelf. “Mother, what is this?” Unbidden, the image of the bastard’s misshapen wolf carving comes to mind and she frowns.

“I do not know, child.” She shakes her head lightly as if to rid it of the thoughts. “What did you learn about Harrenhal?”

“The ruling houses.”

“Who holds Harrenhal now?”

“House Whent. Their sigil has nine black bats.” Robb pauses then puts the mold down and turns to face his mother with an inquisitive look on his face. “Are the Whents blood drinkers?”

Catelyn nearly sputters.

“Why in all the heavens would you ever think that?”

“Old Nan says that blood drinkers can turn into bats. Is that why it is their sigil?”

“I would not place too much stock into Old Nan’s details. And no, the Whents are not blood drinkers.” Catelyn is not sure whether to be amused or horrified.

“How do you know?”

“Believe it or not, my mother was born a Whent and I can assure you that neither she nor I nor yourself drink blood.” She reaches out to tickle him. He giggles as he escapes her reach. “Who held Harrenhal before House Whent?”

“House Lothston,” her son replies confidently then his expression wavers. “I suppose they don’t drink blood either.”

“Not to my knowledge.” She gives him a small smirk. “Do you know who was the first noble House to hold Harrenhal?”

Robb adorably puts a finger to his chin as he thinks.

“House...Hoare?” He looks over quickly to the corner where the bastard sits. He’s not said a word which prompted Robb’s boredom. “That’s right, isn’t it?”

Catelyn, shaking her head is cut off from answering when the boy answers instead.

“It was House Qoherys,” he’s not looking at Catelyn, but strictly at Robb.

“But House Hoare was the first we talked about! Maester Luwin said King Harren-”

“They were Kings of the Ironborn,” the boy interrupts her son, “But Aegon the Conqueror got rid of them then gave the Iron Islands to House Greyjoy and Harrenhal to House Qoherys.”

He’s happy she realizes, touting off the Maester’s words confidently. She has never heard him speak unless directly asked the few times she’s sat in one their lessons with Luwin. She assumed him to be a slow learner. Catelyn stares at him and he shrinks back when he notices. He’s correct but it brings her no joy. Her nightmare still fresh on her mind does nothing to aid her discontent.

Instead she turns back to her own son after a moment longer.

“Did you know this, Robb?” Her tone is a mix of accusatory and pleading.

“I kind of remember Maester Luwin talking about it.” Robb answers honestly.

“He…” she glares at the other boy but he continues anyway. She’ll not stand to see him surpass Robb in lessons. He’ll not surpass Robb in _anything_. It is not his _right_. “He knows about the other Houses in the Riverlands. Like your House, House Tully-”

“I am a Stark, Snow, unlike yourself-”

“I know, m’sorry, Lady Stark, I only meant he was real interested in House Tully because he knows it’s his blood. I had trouble with those Houses.” Robb is nodding his head along with the other’s words.

She finds herself settling though she wonders if he’s too clever for his own good. 

“Come,” she says pushing away her empty plate and holding a hand out towards Robb. “You’ll feed now.”

_____

Robb was sick.

His sneezes and sniffles started in the night. Usually a well rested silent sleeper he kept moving and whined a bit at the back of his throat.

Catelyn knew it meant she would have to stay with him most of the day or leave a servant with him but she also did not want to risk a servant catching illness from her son and spreading it through the castle. They could not risk an epidemic.

With the cold and lack of food, it would be harder for everyone even the adults to fight it off and harder on Luwin to treat everyone.

The boy however had no such compunction about staying away from Robb. He was useful in receiving the servants or retrieving items from Luwin. He even delivered Catelyn’s dinner after having gone with Ned to grab her breakfast. Catelyn had banished Ned from the room saying it wouldn’t do for the Lord of Winterfell to catch sick. He’d left regrettably but not after sneaking a quick kiss to their sick son’s forehead which earned him a glare from Catelyn. 

The boy then promised to stay and help out where he could.

Catelyn was unfortunately grateful for him.

Under normal circumstances, the illness wasn’t life threatening but it was messier and all around more uncomfortable. Robb complained of a scratchy throat but since he had a liquid only diet, there was no extra discomfort. However the mother’s milk, Luwin said may cause more liquid build-up in his throat and nose so it would be best to dilute.

So there she sat holding Robb at an odd angle, his nose leaking mucus as he suckled from her and then she would promptly take the cup of water from the bastard’s hands and force Robb to sip some.

Robb wasn’t very talkative or exuberant, sniffing and struggling to breathe at times. The sounds were awful in her ears. She knew that there were many children that had passed on from simple illness. Their bodies simply too weak to fight it off. 

A fear started to envelope her, as she glanced at the bastard, looking practically immune, while her son struggled to breathe. Would they do it? Would the gods steal her only surviving son from her as well?

She closed her eyes and whispered a fervent prayer to the old gods and the new to spare her son as they had once spared the bastard. For if they stole her Robb she would surely break.

“You’ll be alright, Robb,” the boy says and oddly his words seem to settle her until she sees him reaching for Robb’s back to rub it. Catelyn intercepts his hand, nearly smacking it away. He pulls it back in time with a gasp before the strike connects.

“I’ll not have you both sick,” she admonishes despite the fact he’s been as close to Robb as she has and is most likely to get sick from the proximity.

She looks down at Robb, his eyes big and wide and he’s stopped suckling though his mouth is still covering her teat.

Then she feels his body tense just before he sneezes. She feels speckles of wet on her exposed breast, neck and face and she can’t quite bite back a scream as his teeth snap down too hard on her.

Robb however notices her pained face and pulls back.

“Sorry mama,” he pleads repeatedly through clogged throat and she quickly tries to reassure him she’s alright despite fearing for a moment he’d bitten her clean through. He sounds so pitiful, little more than a babe when he’s sick. After feeding him she leaves him with the cup of water and tucks him before making her way to the washroom to clean herself of Robb’s spittle.

When she steps back into the bedchamber she sees Robb nodding his head to something that the boy is saying while tapping Robb’s knee. A comforting gesture she supposes she can’t get too upset over now.

“Come,” she orders sitting on the bed and the boy knows she’s addressing him. Grateful to not have to hold him as she does Robb, he latches on easily to her left breast and drinks quickly seeming to sense Catelyn’s tiredness. He pulls away with a quick thank you and settles into bed on the other side of Robb.

She knows in the middle of the bed, one will cuddle into the other despite her wish for them not to. Most times it’s Robb who has pulled his bastard brother to him for extra warmth but this time she wakes to find it’s the bastard holding his half-brother protectively.

When she wakes fully in the morning it is to a scratchy throat herself. Robb is still not recovered and so she strictly stays in the bedchamber, now already exposed and affected it makes no difference.

However, the boy doesn’t leave either. Like Ned had, he grabs both of Catelyn’s meals that day, going all the way to the kitchens to do so. Catelyn gave Luwin explicit instructions not to teach the bastard without Robb so he spends time sitting at the desk reviewing previous lessons.

Catelyn spends some of the time watching him. Neither of the boys have started the changes into manhood yet and will not for a few more name days, but even now small and underfed he hunches over the desk looking just like her husband.

Catelyn can only frown once again silently cursing the bastard’s mother for giving Ned a son so like him. And she could only give him a Tully boy.

Being contained so in her own bed chambers allows her time to take up some needlework she had not touched in awhile. It helps to keep her mind off the shadow in her rooms. Robb spends most of the day sleeping, though he does occasionally engage in banter with the bastard.

She is certain though that it is the most she has had direct conversation with him as well. Mostly dictating orders as he has taken it upon himself to answer the door and relay Catelyn’s messages to servants who stop by, the only persons allowed admittance being Maester Luwin or Cora.

He is smart enough to only allow Cora inside the doorway, handing her anything she requests. She asks after Catelyn and Robb’s health.

“Hello Maester Luwin,” the boy greets. It’s the second time the maester has visited. “Did you bring the lemon tea?”

Luwin chuckles, patting the boy on the head. He is carrying a tray and Catelyn wonders what sorcery he has worked to keep the cup steaming.

“Aye, I have,” he steps inside and places the cup on the stand next to Catelyn’s bed.

“Thank you, Luwin.” Her voice is crackly but the older man smiles nonetheless. “We still have lemon in stores?”

“Yes, unfortunately because it is not so fresh, the potency may not be as strong, but it will help to clear the airways and soothe your throat.”

She leans over to sniff and feels her breathing clear if for but a moment as the scent of citrus and herbs invade her nostrils. 

“Might I give some to Robb to teethe?”

“Of course, my Lady.” Luwin starts to leave then turns to the boy. “You’ve been dutiful and I have told your father and he is proud. Let me know if the Lady or young Lord require anything else.”

He nods up and down.

“Yes, Maester!” The older man gives a farewell but Catelyn is staring at the boy when he turns around. The smile on his face immediately drops as does his gaze.

“What did you tell the Maester?”

He toes at the ground shyly.

“Nothing really, he found me when I went to the kitchens and I told him you were coughing and might be sick. After you broke your fast, I told him you had some trouble eating because of your throat. You kept clearing it...sorry my Lady, I won’t say anyth-”

“It’s alright,” she cuts in before he can continue his wailing. “It was... thoughtful.”

He just nods but doesn’t look up at her before going back to the desk. She wants to ask why he would do something like that, for her but she cannot bring herself to do so.Instead, she drinks her tea, grateful for its soothing attributes and then sticks a cloth in it, wakes Robb and let him suckle on it.

She and Robb break from their sickness at about the same time. She gives it a day before having the sheets replaced and allowing Ned to return. She can’t help the bitterness that wells up though when she realizes the bastard does not get sick.

She and Robb pulling through their sickness made her less miserable and gave the illusion of things improving.

They did not and only got worse.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for the comments, kudos, and for continuing to read!


	4. Winter IV

The warm water of the hot springs are redirected through the castle through iron piping. With the new wall not finished, the castle has gotten colder. A wave of cold hit them, lowering the temperature outside even more and causing one of the main pipes to freeze in the night.

It resulted in two of the servants quarters dropping far below freezing in a matter of minutes.

Ned had returned early in the evening to report to her the news. They had lost six servants in those rooms. None having even woken before the chill stole their breath.

Of course when he began relaying the names of the casualties, she hadn’t realized Luwin had returned the boys from their lessons. They were standing wide eyed in the door. Spotting Robb’s sad look, she opened her arms to him immediately. 

People that had tended to him. Some he’d known by name even at his early age.

She’d fed him then not noticing Ned crouched in front of the boy who hadn’t said a word but seemed to stare off into nothingness ignoring his father’s words.

She tended not to feed the boys in front of Ned. When she finished with Robb, the boy, still not reacting, had to be lifted and deposited onto the bed in front of Catelyn.

Still he did not move.

“Snow.”

As if shook out of whatever trance he was in he leaned forward and began to suckle instinctually for a few seconds but then he stopped. He didn’t back away though.

She looked down when she felt wet drops onto the top of her breast only to see the boy crying, again silently as he was want to do.

“Jon?” Robb’s voice peaked Ned’s interest as he could not quite see what was happening and Catelyn felt like she was back to when the boy thought he was meant to freeze to death.

His shoulders began to shake and he actually let out a muffled sob. She felt the sound vibrate through her skin.

“Jon!” Ned hurried over but before he could be lifted by his father, the boy lurched forward and Catelyn found herself lap full of her husband’s bastard. 

He didn’t stop crying but he kept trying to drink.

It’s only then that she realizes what might have bothered him.

“Is this because of Cora?” She kept her voice even though she knew not what to do with the boy attached to her.

Only a louder sob is her answer and she wonders what care had the young woman given to him to have him so hysterical. He had not cried so even when his wetnurse and her child passed on.

He sounded absolutely heartbroken.

But it was more than that, his tears, his crying, she had heard it all before. A wretched sound echoing through her mind in her dreams...

“Shhh,” she says willing herself to hold him because the sounds he were making were grating on her very soul. She remembered the sounds Lysa had made when their mother died. They were so like the sounds the boy was making it made her own heart ache in remembrance.

She could not think of who birthed him at the moment, nor her husband’s transgressions. She could only hear that terrible crying. That crying sound from her past and nights, were coming from the boy before her in her waking hours.

She pulled him close not unlike she did to Robb and began to rock him. Even Robb’s eyes began to water at his half brother’s distress so she pulled him close as well, rocking them both and humming the same song she’d hummed to Lysa that day. She herself had been crying back then too, but she was forced to focus on the grief of her younger sister, who was only a child at the time.

In truth, Catelyn was also afraid. The night terror she’d had left her uneasy once again. And she was certain she looked a bit wild-eyed in fear of the creature from her dreams making itself known. She would not risk it. It was foolish but with their life turned into an endless nightmare, she felt as if she was always teetering on the brink of madness. 

Eventually his sobbing subsided and he began to drink again but the tears didn’t stop until well after he’d fallen asleep. Robb acting the protector and wrapping his arms around the boy and Ned pulling them all towards him.

Catelyn was the last to fall asleep staring at the boy’s tear streaked face. Even in sleep he was still tormented. 

By a servant. 

A servant girl that was not his mother. A girl that had she been able, would have fed Snow on her behalf. But she had no children and was not even married. 

Now she was dead. Frozen in her sleep from which she would never wake. A death the boy had feared not so long ago.

It was too cold to venture to the Sept or to the godswood. She turned in her bed and stared at the figurines of the Seven that adorned her side table.

The statue of the Mother taunts her. They brought this boy to torment her. Shame her or punish her, she knew not. She had made a vow to them to treat the boy as her own and she thought she had done her duty, more than her duty, but still they rob her of the lives of her children.. Steal the people of the castle from her. And keep this boy alive as she had asked.

Even now her husband, son, and the bastard sleep upon covers that had been cleaned of the memory of her latest lost babe.

He still lives.

They intend him a punishment and the winter continues only to wither their minds and kill their souls.

Was all of the North meant to die to keep this one bastard alive?

A _dark_ rebellious part of her wonders if she should forsake them all. They mean the boy a punishment for her. Perhaps she should simply enjoy the punishment. Make the gods change their minds.

A cruel part of her wonders on the boy’s mother, thinks about her someday venturing to the castle looking for her motherless child only to find her spot forever replaced.

He drank from _her_. And there was no other woman left to care for him. The gods would not end the winter nor give her more children of her own. Perhaps...she could simply steal the one they left to taunt her.

As she lightly caresses Robb’s scalp, she lets her smallest finger wrap around a single strand of inky black.

Ned left in the morning, taking Robb with him. He meant to take the boy too but she’d stopped him. 

“Let him sleep, he’s had a long night.”

Surprised by his wife’s softening towards his bastard he’d thanked her and left with a sleepy Robb in tow.

 

When the boy woke she found herself oddly anxious. He rubbed his eyes no doubt feeling the dryness of skin from his tears. He looked around confused for a moment seeing only her.

Quickly he shot up and mumbled an apology.

“I’ll feed you once breakfast arrives.” He nods but makes no attempt to move from the bed. When her food comes, Catelyn eats quickly. She says nothing to him as she eats the meager meal. She watches him out of the corner of her eye though. He’s uneasy, fiddling with his fingers and rubbing them against the covers. He dutifully avoids looking her in the eye though she sees him look in the direction of the desk a few times.

Relieving him of his discomfort, finally she speaks.

“How are you feeling?”

At first he only shrugs.

“Use your words, Snow,” she admonishes lightly. 

“I am...okay.” A lie. He’s not. His bastard blood is certainly turning him into quite the accomplished liar, she notes.

“You are still sad about Cora’s passing.”

For a moment she fears the waterworks will start again but they don’t. His eyes remain clear though his body language exudes grief.

“She was my friend.”

Friend. She was more than that Catelyn is certain. Possibly closer to a sister. Maybe he wished the young girl to be his mother.

“She was pleasant company. She was,” Cat pauses to think of a simpler word, “nice to you.”

“Cora said her best friend in White Harbor had parents that weren’t wed. She didn’t care that I was a bastard.” He nods. “Sorry,” he adds as an afterthought.

“No,” Catelyn agrees, “She did not.” She puts her plate down. “I’ll feed you now.”

The boy hesitates before scooting closer to her. As normal he sits on his knees leaving space between them but before he can react she pulls him, cuddling him like she would a mere babe at her breast, supporting his head and tightening her grip around his tiny waist. He struggles a moment, kicking his feet that are now crossed at the ankles but being unable to support himself at that angle he settles against her. 

“Drink,” she commands and he does so, eyes wide in shock and confusion. Without looking down she can let her mind wander a bit, imagining it is a different child in her arms. First she thinks of Robb but no, Robb is more joyous at drinking. This could be a different son, perhaps the one she lost, that she got to lay eyes on for two days. He had no hair yet so she could not tell what coloring he had but maybe he was dark haired like her Ned.

Like the boy in her arms.

He’s still tense in her arms but she doesn’t care.

When he’s finished, she allows him to sit up and he scoots back a respectable distance.

“Thank you, Lady Stark.”

“No.” He tenses again. “When I feed you, it’s… _Mother_.”

His eyes go wide once more and she can see it, that vulnerable unadulterated hope. Cora probably saw it. Ned probably sees it and even Robb as well, but she’s sure it’s never as open as in that moment.

“I-”

“ _Say it_.”

He hesitates only a second, probably thinking it a trick.

“Thank you,” he gulps a bit. “Mother.”

Catelyn’s smile is cruel.

From then on every so often she allows a different touch, running a hand through his hair, rubbing his back, holding him an extra few moments after he’s finished drinking from her. Her thoughts would drift to wondering if he had been a child from her womb, what she would have named him. Not Jon...maybe Brandon...or perhaps Hoster for her father. Robb the joyful child he is, turns even more exuberant the first time he hears the boy call Catelyn ‘Mother’.

He’s even more careful to only say it around or during a feeding. With Ned or servants around he still sticks to ‘Lady Catelyn’ which is well enough for her. For a time.

But she knows she enjoys it too much. Undermining the gods that torment her and the boy’s mysterious mother. Stealing him from them for her own purposes makes her feel powerful. _Devious_. Something that had never appealed to her before.

Now it felt an addiction.

The Seven were meant to be revered and feared, her Septa always told her. But now, facing down what could possibly be the last of her days, the end of her husband’s House, she found she wished to take joy where she could in this life.

And gods, how much easier it was to pretend he was her family. To give him commands and mold him as more malleable clay. He wished her to mother him, no matter how he distrusted her at first, he allowed it, accepted it, she could see it in his innocent little eyes.

The first day she had washed his hair while he bathed, he had been tense. And silent. She had not offered, simply sat at the edge of the wash basin and dug her fingers into his scalp, massaging as she was want to do with Robb and Ned when the fancy took her. It should have been relaxing for him but the boy probably feared she would drive her nails in until he bled. The water turned cold quickly and he began to shiver though still he kept his lips sealed. She took pity on him and gave his hair a final rinsing before silently excusing herself. He took only moments to leap from the water and shroud himself in his clothes.

More recently however, he sank back into her touch and she could see the excitement overtaking the mild distrust in his eyes as she began to lather the scant oils they had into his hair. 

It’s nearly a moon’s turn before Ned announces that the wall to the springs chamber has been fixed as has the frozen iron piping.

The castle seems to warm over the next few days. The floors no longer require boots to walk upon and the walls cast a shiny glow from the melted frost that had so recently coated it.

Soon after Catelyn noticed a neat pile of extra blankets and furs placed in the corner of the room. When the boys return with Ned, they excitedly take to setting up the fort and playing well after Catelyn and Ned have shared dinner together.

“You boys will need to sleep soon,” her husband calls after the latest bout of laughter from the pair has died down. Catelyn is immediately unlacing her robe. “Come eat.”

Two heads pop out from under the fort. Robb is out first and Catelyn lifts him onto the bed, feeding him and listening to Ned talk to Jon as he waits patiently in front of his father.

Once finished, Robb immediately starts into his story about the day with his father. Catelyn pulls Jon in close as is her new normal, humming contentedly to the sounds of his suckling and Robb’s voice and ignoring the brief look on Ned’s face. Robb has a way of making even the dullest of days sound like an adventure.

When Jon is finished he pulls away and sits up but she sees the way he tenses.

“Thank you...Lady St-” his eyes flicker to the side towards his father but Catelyn gives him a hard look when he hesitates. “Thank you Mother,” he says quickly. She relaxes and smiles which he only half returns.

“You’re welcome, Snow.”

Only then does she notice the odd look Ned is giving her. Jon starts to get off the bed but Catelyn grasps his shoulder.

“Where are you going?” she asks in the same stern voice she’s come to use often with the boy. “It’s time to sleep.”

Jon looks over at the fort then to where Robb has already gotten under the covers. The poor child is confused pointing towards the fort with his mouth open in an unasked question.

“You’ll not sleep on the floor.” Jon, who no longer questions Catelyn’s odd actions, simply nods and scoots back to the other side of Robb as normal to avoid her ire.

“Good night my Lord,” is the last thing she says before slipping under the covers herself, leaving Ned blinking into the dark room, still bewildered.

It doesn’t take long for the boy to slip up though, calling her Mother in front of Luwin first. Then a servant overhearing. She only smiles at the questioning looks she receives. She cannot blame them. It had not been long ago that he had first called her “Mama” and she had simply turned her back on the toddler.

And she can see the way he softens towards her, opens up as she becomes the only Mother in his life. 

It is empowering in a way it isn’t with Robb.

Then Luwin receives a raven from White Harbor.

The winter is breaking. Brutal and detrimental but it was one of the shorter winters, lasting only ten moons. 

It felt like a lifetime. 

The castle is able to be opened up and rooms are heated again.The springs are no longer the sole source of heat and fires that are cast actually remain burning throughout the day with a bit of kindling. With the promise of food stores to be replenished, and the glass gardens being able to be opened once more, the rations are slowly alleviated.

Catelyn keeps the boys in her rooms for longer. It takes time to wean both off of mother’s milk and back to solids. Jon tries too much too quickly and sometimes finds himself vomiting a meal. 

She knows why he pushes himself. He fears the chasing away of the cold will chase away Catelyn’s regard of him. Despite having been on solids for a time with Ned, it takes longer to wean him back than Robb. Instead of simply sending Robb back to his room, she sends them both back once Jon is weaned as well.

It hurts strangely. She had come to enjoy, she supposes, caring for them as one would babes. Then to suddenly have them back as boys again leaves her longing. 

Robb continues to ask for stories at bedtime. It becomes almost second nature to Catelyn as it is for Ned to invite Jon into Robb’s room to hear. It’s not as easy to carry Jon as it once had been now that they are both gaining their strength from solid foods so where Ned carries him, she will wake him briefly to walk him back to his room.

“Thank you for the stor…” his words break off into a yawn, ”Mother.” He’s asleep again quickly not noticing the light hug he gives her as she tucks him in and it warms her ever so slightly. She never answers him but she has to stop herself from kissing his forehead.

It’s not the first time Catelyn wonders if she’s tricking herself into believing her own lie.


	5. Spring

Sansa is born but a year into spring. A healthy red haired and blue eyed girl that both boys swear to protect and watch over. Catelyn only lets her suckle from the right breast despite the discomfort and ever present soreness. 

Arya, when she comes just ten months later (much to Luwin’s initial displeasure) has none of it and seems to want only the left. A northern child of dark hair and dark eyes like Ned...like Snow.

Bran, she tries only the right but eventually allows him either.His pregnancy had been the easiest. His birthing had been difficult, leaving Catelyn weak and sickly for a fortnight afterward. She remembers Robb and Snow then into their beginning changes into adulthood taking turns tending to her. Snow more than Robb as he had more responsibilities along side his father.

“Lemon tea for your throat, Lady Stark.”

Her kindness toward him had waned as the snows melted and the reserves built again. As her own brood grew, he meant less. But he still meant something to her.

“Mother,” she croaks and he smiles apologetically placing it by her bedside. She could already smell it, knowing he’d learned to make it as well as Luwin considering the many times he and Robb fell ill after the winter.

“Yes, Mother.” She grabs his wrist as he turns to leave. It’s not a verbal thank you but her touch is gentle and he says “You’re welcome” with a nod.

By the time Rickon comes she cares not from which breast he drinks.

Though the brutal winter was short, the North still is repairing and repopulating itself more than a decade later. The ironborn have no compunctions and attempt an attack at the onset of summer.

Ned goes away to war once more and comes back with a hostage, not much older than Robb and Jon, who is apparently the last living son of the rebellious Balon Greyjoy. The young man is kept under armed guard. Not in a cell but a room as he is the heir to the Iron Islands.

King Robert demanded the hostage kept in the North to dissuade Balon from reaving there.

The North had in fact suffered the most from the short harsh winter.

Ravens had been sent from the south but with no communication from any northern houses, the rest of the southern realm thought the North to be lost for good.

“There were talks,” Ned told to the audience in his solar consisting of herself, Maester Luwin, Ser Rodrick and the newest appointed steward, Vayon Poole, given the passing of their old one during the winter, “Of building a southron wall just north of the Twins. The King opposed his advisors in this fortunately.”

The ‘Winter Wall’ is what people said. They’d attempted a scout and rescue but it was as if a large shield of cold and ice had blocked any travel into the Neck and further north. It was rumored that some men ventured into the blanket of white only to freeze where they stood in moments.

“They thought us lost like the Land of Always Winter,” her husband explained solemnly. “Lord Arryn even wrote to tell me that certain high Lords pre-emptively praised King Robert as the next Bran the Builder, protecting the realm from the Northern savages.” Ned laughs but Catelyn knows it’s more of a bitter scoff. “They thought us no better than the wildlings north of the Wall.”

Catelyn had shivered in response just thinking what would have happened had they never escaped that winter. Had it never ended, they would have all perished certainly. But to think had it continued for longer, for years, and the King’s council had won out, would they have been exiled from the realm? The North would have had to survive on its own, trapped with a wall to the north and a wall to the south.

Her father, sister, and brother had all written imploring her to come South for some time, bring your son, your husband (if you must), to warm up and regain your strength they said.

Catelyn, despite her physical weakness had never felt stronger than when she emerged from that winter. She had survived. And the severe ten moons had reshaped the North. Family meant something different. Something _more_. It was not just the people who shared your blood but those that survived alongside you. Those that banned with you to stay alive. 

She had seen that determination and strength even in the eyes of the smallfolk that came to beg their liege lord for assistance, new seed for crops, and materials for stronger homes. Women and men petitioning with a gaggle of children that may not have been theirs in blood but in spirit.

She knew she could not leave Jon behind, not unless she wished to undo all of her progress. She told herself that he was still her best pet project.

She had declined her family by birth stating her place was by her husband’s side as they attempted to heal and rebuild the North. Every House, now seemed to live by the Stark words.

Her father in response had sent men and supplies to aid in the effort and she had been ever thankful to him.

____

A knock at the door sounds just as she places Rickon down for his nap.

“Enter,” she calls softly. It’s Robb and she finds a smile comes to her face. Even after all these years he is still as exuberant when he sees her. And she’s not foolish. She knows the winter changed bonds. She loves all her children but she shares a special one with her eldest. The child she fed twice. Their small family had grown ever closer in a time of shared distress.

She cannot help it if they say he is his mother’s son because he still seems attached.

“Father is lessening Greyjoy’s guard today,” her son explains softly as to not wake his youngest brother. “He thought you might wish to meet him.”

Catelyn scoffs but allows her son to escort her anyway.

They went into the Great Hall, clean and spotless but she can still remember when it was filled to capacity with smallfolk seeking shelter from brutal unforgiving winds. She remembers returning when a few were discarding many bodies. She had thought it would take years to scrub the place of the smell of death.

Ned sits at the high table. High table is symbolic as it’s barely raised a step or two above the main floor.

Luwin sits at his right. Rodrick is off to the side. Robb takes her to the empty seat at her husband’s left before standing on her other side mirroring Ser Rodrick.

Only once seated does she notice the guard around the Greyjoy lad, Jory, as well as another of the young guardsmen. 

Jon Snow is there as well. 

“Step forward, Theon Greyjoy,” her husband commands, quieting the crowd. The boy, because after seeing their noble hostage, Catelyn can hardly see him as a man well into his years, takes three steps forward. He isn’t exceedingly handsome, not like her Robb or her Jon, but he has an arrogance to him, she can tell that men either lose entirely or gain ten fold in the face of war. “You have been in my care for several moons. Your behavior has been more or less agreeable. I would present you here today with some liberties as a reward and encouragement to your continued cooperation.”

Theon’s expression holds a sneer but he says nothing. Apparently he’d grown a bit bitter being locked away in a room for over a moon’s turn.

“An hour each day you will be allowed roaming of the castle and its grounds,”Ned continues undeterred by the young man’s silence, “escorted of course. Also do not assume your lessened guards means you are any less observed.”

“Thank you for your hospitality, Lord Stark,” he says derisively. Cat tenses waiting for the scolding backlash from her Lord husband.

“You are welcome,” Ned says instead, ignoring the disrespect and Catelyn hears the light chuckle that escapes Robb’s mouth. By the light twitch of her husband’s mouth, she is certain he knows exactly what he’s doing.

When he’s dismissed, Jory and Jon are the ones to lead him away. Catelyn takes the moment to turn to Robb.

“Why is Snow with him?” She lowers her voice not wanting anyone, even Ned to hear.

“He volunteered to be the reaver’s main guard when Jory could not. Father thought it well since they’re of similar age.”

It was not well. 

Upon learning Jon to be a bastard, Theon despised and taunted him. Jon for the most part took his prisoner’s verbal assault but Jon was a young man and would sometimes rise to the bait. 

The other guards, many of whom had survived the harsh winter and respected the fighter Jon had grown up to be, were prone to turn a blind eye when Jon decided he’d rather compare Theon’s taunts to his fists.

Ned however would have none of it.

“He is our guest,” her husband would implore to his bastard son. “And is to be treated with the respect his station deserves.”

Catelyn frowned upon hearing it even if Jon would acquiesce to his father’s demands at dinner. 

“You would tolerate verbal abuse against members of your House?” she whispers once food and ale has been served and the castle becomes rapturous and noisy. She could tell Robb wanted to further argue with his Father on Jon’s behalf but he held his tongue seeing the seriousness in the elder’s eyes. For once, she is glad Arya is distracting Sansa from listening who is sat right next to her.

“Had it been my choice, Jon would not have learned the meaning of the word bastard until he was a man grown,” Catelyn stiffens at the barely veiled chastisement. “When he has been taunted his entire life by the men in our castle I would expect him to rise above it and disprove them all.”

“You blame me?” she asks incredulous despite the churning of guilt she feels. Had she not been the first to slander the boy to his face? And she was certain the men of the castle thought, if the Lady Stark could say it, why couldn’t they? Briefly her eyes seek out where Snow takes a seat amongst the men. He earns a nudge from a guard to whom he returns a false smile.

“Quite the contrary,” at this he turns to face her forcing her to turn from Jon. “I thank you for the kindness you have shown him.”

His words are genuine and Catelyn is embarrassed to find the lump that forms in her throat.

It’s not until dessert is served when she catches Jon’s eye at the lower tables that shame fills her for the mummer’s farce she’s been playing all these years.

After the meal, Catelyn excuses herself to go to the sept. She knows by the sounds of the swift but sure footsteps, Robb had followed her. He shouldn’t have. Always quick on his mother’s heels, the men will be slow to respect him but she has not the heart to chastise him.

He comes and stands next to his mother, now half a head taller than she and Catelyn was not a short woman. She’s thankful the time of being malnourished hasn’t affected his growth in the long run. He stands as tall as any northman. Almost as tall as his father.

He doesn’t say anything as he stands beside her. He worships his father’s old gods more, feeling they were the ones to chase away the harsh winter. She finds she can’t disagree.

Catelyn meant to leave a candle and prayer with each of the Seven but she can’t pull her gaze from the small statue of the Mother.

“Do you ever think about her?” She asks to her son without looking at him. “Snow’s mother.”

An unfair question to her son, she supposes. But she had thought on that mysterious woman with rage every day for years. And then she only thought on her everytime she saw the woman’s son. 

“Yes.” he answers easily enough and she finds she does have to look at him. “Everytime I think of you.”

Catelyn misunderstood what her son meant by that.

____

“The Hand of the King, Lord Jon Arryn wrote to me,” Ned starts having gathered the family in his solar save their two younger boys. Catelyn glances around where Arya is leaning against Robb and Sansa is seated ever so demurely next to them in the only other free chair. She knows what he wishes to discuss but she is quite excited to see her children’s expressions. “King Robert is considering visiting the North. A show of goodwill and to check in on the reconstruction. Also,” he settles his gaze on his eldest daughter. “He is considering a betrothal between the crown Prince Joffrey and Sansa once she comes of age.”

Sansa doesn’t make a sound but her eyes widen in obvious pleasure and her mouth opens in a delicate ‘o’ shape. Arya, on the other hand, makes a sound of disgust which Robb finds amusing.

“If our family finds it agreeable, Winterfell will host the royal family at their journey’s end and Sansa will return with the party to King’s Landing at the least.” Though Catelyn is loathed to be parted from any of her children and Ned even more, she cannot help the pleasant thought of her sweet Sansa becoming a woman in truth. And it pleases her to think that King Robert is a true friend to the North, going into what the rest of the realm thought to be an easily discarded wasteland and finding their future Queen.

Robb shifts.

“At the least?”

“There is a chance Bran may join the party in order to become a knight’s page. In that case, I will be joining them for some time.”

Bran was around the age the Robb had been during the Winter. To send him off to eventually become a squire at an age when she had been feeding Robb at the teat was odd for her.

Robb immediately looks distressed.

“Is this not too many changes at once, Father?” He asks bringing all eyes on him curiously at the emotion in his voice. Catelyn can’t help but pity her son, nervous about the inherent responsibility to be thrust upon him.

“Your mother and Maester Luwin will be here to guide you, Robb. You will be acting Lord of Winterfell in my stead. Your mother and I agree you are ready for this.”

“And I am grateful for Mother but he has not changed his mind.” Catelyn frowns in confusion. “He’ll be gone before you.”

“Who will be gone?”

As if only realizing others were listening still, her husband and first born look at her with twin expressions of unease.

“Jon is joining the Night’s Watch.” Ned clears his throat. “He’ll leave with Benjen.”

Benjen, her good brother who had come to recruit for the Wall and escort prisoners. Whom was leaving in two days.

Catelyn hardly listened to the rest of the meeting nor Arya’s anger towards Robb for not informing her of Jon’s decision. When Ned excused them, she was out the door before even her children, the echo of Sansa happily thanking her father disappearing behind her.

She found the boy in his chambers, walls bare and most clothing packed away and for a moment she forgot herself, expecting the small shivering child wrapped in pathetic furs. Instead he was sat on his bed in breeches and a simple shirt and jerkin running a whetstone over a small thin sword. She looked to the place where his misshapen dragon wolf once lay and frowned all the more.

She didn’t announce herself as she stood in the doorway, fury building up in waves. It took nearly a full minute before he noticed her presence.

“Lady Stark!” he startles, still almost as badly as when he was a child. He rises to his feet and drops the sword onto his bed. “May I help you?”

So formal. Like they’re strangers. She curls her fingers into fists.

“You’re leaving.” It’s not a question It’s an accusation and at once his tension evaporates into nervous energy. She can still frighten him. Good.

“I intend to take the Black-”

“Why?” she asks forcing as much derision in her voice as she can. “Have we not been good to you? Has Lord Stark not been a proper father to you?” Each word comes out harsh and rasped.

“I could not have asked for a better father.” A pang shoots through her at her own exclusion. “But the world does not see me as Lord Eddard Stark’s son, it sees me as his bastard. And my place is not here.” The sharp annoyance in his eyes seem to tell her You know this! Why torture me so?

“Lord Stark may be going south for a while.”

“All the more reason for me to leave.”

“Robb had hoped for your support.”

“Robb does not need me. He will do fine. You have raised a strong son and heir.”

“I do not need validation from you, Snow!”

He does not immediately return the volley of their argument.Oh, how he could still make her blood boil without even raising his voice! Simply by looking at him; his words alone churn guilt through her belly and burn her like a heated blade.

He just stands there as if he does not understand her.

“I thought this would make you happy, Lady Stark,” he says cautiously, “You have always viewed me as a threat to your children. This is the best thing for the family.”

“You do not get to decide what is best! You have not even seen twenty years yet!”

Again he pauses but the way he shifts from one foot to the other and looks down at the ground briefly as if it will give him wisdom is so like her Ned that she almost screams.

Instead she juts out her chin a bit almost in challenge when the boy looks at her with Ned’s soulful eyes.

“I remember that day, Lady Stark,” he begins his voice even and calm but his eyes harden suddenly, ”in the winter when I was but a boy and you did not let me drink from you. I thought I had no mother and my name was Snow so perhaps the snow could feed me. I tried to put it in a bowl,” he scoffs at himself almost amused, “and watch it melt into water. I convinced myself it was milk of the earth. And then you found me, you and Cora and she told me ‘My Lady was worried for you.’ I never heard that before because I always thought Lady Stark only worried about what I meant. But that day you worried for me like you worry for people you care and love.” 

Instead of keeping his gaze lowered he looks her straight in the eye.

“I wish to return the favor. I won’t be a hardship to your House anymore.”

Catelyn can only gape. All these years, she had thought...she had thought she had molded him. And yet the boy was still too clever. Never fully trusting her. Somehow he could see through the facade. Still she should be happy. He was finally going away and of his own volition. He knew his place.

But if she truly played the mummer why does his leaving hurt so much?

“I want you to stay.”

She sees it again. That look of vulnerable hope that she had seen all those years ago. It’s brief but it’s there.

“You always tell me to call you Mother,” he suddenly spits embittered, “you plead for me to stay, as if you long for that little boy you once held in your lap. And yet,” he shakes his head and doesn’t continue his thought. “The Night’s Watch is an honorable place for a bastard.”

“You do not think me your Mother?”

Her voice comes out more heart broken than she wished and she can see the way it causes him to tense in discomfort.

“You are the only Mother I have ever known.” For some reason his admission does not make her feel better. “I used to dream about her. Wonder what she looked like. Was she pretty? I didn’t care if she was high born or peasant or...my mind could never settle and then after that Winter, every time I dreamed of her, she always looked like you or part of you. Red hair or blue eyes. Sometimes she would call me ‘bastard’ like you would call Robb ‘sweetling’.I know it was not a place you wished to be. You insist I call you Mother despite never calling me by my name. It’s always ‘Snow’ or ‘Boy’!”

Something dark unfurls within her. She’s proud, with a sinister happiness that she has diminished the boy’s birth mother in his mind. But that is it. Not in his heart. No, some mysterious woman still holds that place.

“I knew you hated me. Because I could see how you were with your children and then how you were with me. Still, I convinced myself it was better to have a cruel mother than no mother at all.”

Her heart cracks and shatters a bit at those words. And when had her own heart ever truly been on the line concerning her husband’s bastard son? 

She cannot even summon the energy to rage at him. Instead she leaves him with a huff intending on finding Ned.

The argument is inevitable, and Ned senses it as he excuses Luwin and shuts and locks the door to his solar as soon as she enters.

“You are angry with me, my Lady.” He barely spares her a glance before making his way back to his desk. He pulls out a chair for her though she does not sit.

“When were you going to tell me that your bastard son was leaving for the Watch?”

He sits with a heavy sigh.

“When I knew for sure.”

“He’s already packed.” That gets only the slightest look of surprise from him. “I went to his room to speak to him.”

“He feels this is the best thing for him. I would have found him land but he asked my blessing to join the Watch. He’s asked it for years but I’ve waylaid him, wanting him to grow more.”

“You didn’t say no? Robb seems to be under the impression you would discourage him.”

“Because Robb knows I’ve denied him every time before. But now with the King coming and our family evolving, I told him if he wished it, he could go. I did much the same with Benjen.”

They had been married but a few years when Benjen disappeared for the Wall. Her young good brother that walked the Halls of Winterfell with eyes that carried ghosts like his elder brother. Had they been closer then, she might have discouraged Ned from sending his still grieving brother to such a cold desolate place.

“You did not think to discuss it with me?”

“Cat, you have told me time and again, Jon is my responsibility-”

“I fed him.”her voice cracks under the strain of trying to keep calm. “It was from my breast he drank milk. It was our bed he slept in because I allowed him! I have been-”

“You have been far more accepting and exceedingly kind to Jon than I could have ever hoped.” She holds her tongue as her husband rises from his chair and rests his hands on her shoulders. “In truth, I did not think his leaving would trouble you so.”

Had no one truly believed her? Had she been the only fool in this?

“It doesn’t it-” but that was a lie because she was reacting as if he’d told her Bran intended to take the Black. “I don’t want him to go. Not yet.”

“Catelyn,” and she sees that mirror of confusion on her husband’s face as she had his son, ”this is the safest option for him.”

“Safest?” she reaches and grabs hold of husband’s arm. “Give him a holdfast in a few years!” She’s starting to sound unhinged she knows, but that dream from so long ago is coming back, haunting her as if she had just woke from it. She sees the boy running away from her into the blinding snow never to return. And that creature-

“Cat-”

"He cannot leave, Ned. He _cannot!_ " She could not stop the desperate sounds escaping her throat. Ashamed of them yet knowing her husband was the only one to whom she could bare them.

"What has brought on this hysteria, my Lady?" He sounds almost angry with her. "You have treated Jon with kindness but you have also made sure he remembers his place. The Wall-"

"Is not safe!" She sinks onto his desk, energy suddenly spent. "He wanted me to lift him into my arms. He was crying. Screaming. And I couldn't do it. I _wouldn’t_ do it. He ran from me, Ned, don't you see?"

He sits next to her.

"What are you speaking of?"

"The dream. He runs away into snow so thick it's like a shield. Like a wall. And then the creature or demon comes and-" she stops looks at the pity in her husband's eyes. "I dreamt it that winter. I thought I was being tormented but I see the truth now. I saw the look in his eyes when I saw him in his room earlier. It had looked so odd on this child in my dreams but that's because it was the look of a man. I swear on all the gods this is a warning. He cannot leave."

"Cat," he whispers bending to kiss her knuckles that had tightened in a death grip. "What would you have me do? He is a man grown."

"He would rather run from me than stay for you or Robb or the children.” She searches around as if for the answer when she spots the opened letter with the King’s seal on his desk. “Take him south-"

"No." Ned's voice is gruff and she hates when he says it as such, giving no room for argument. He releases her hands and leans his weight onto his knees. "He can never go South."

"Why? You will be there. Yes, he is baseborn, but King Robert is a true friend to you. Surely he would understand and not take offense-"

"I will never take him South, Cat! I cannot! You say that he cannot go to the Wall. I tell you with the same veracity, he cannot go South."

Catelyn can count on one hand the number of times Ned has spoken to her with such vehemence. Her expression hardens. 

"Is she there?"

"Who?"

"His mother." A heated expression crosses his face and Catelyn finds her second wind, suddenly on her feet again. "What? Is she undesirable? Has her family shunned her? Or the boy perhaps? Disowned him because of how he was conceived and left you to bear the burden alone?"

"Cat-"

"Or are you afraid he will seek her out? Find out she's little more than a whore-"

"You will not speak of her like that again!" But Catelyn cannot cease. She is not a young blushing maiden acquiescing at the behest of her young Lord husband. She has maintained his castle,has birthed him six trueborn babes and loved him through most of them and she will speak her mind.

"And I raised her son! I _fed_ her son! He is more _mine_ than hers and still you protect her! What of my honor and our vows? Do they mean so little to the honorable Eddard Stark and his bastard son!"

"He is not mine!" Ned pulls away from her almost as soon as the words leave his mouth. Catelyn’s frozen in shock trying to comprehend his words. But she sees the flux of emotions cross his face, shock, fear, and then a smile she knows too well. A smile when he’s exhausted but finished a long day of work. The smile when she had finally birthed Bran and Luwin placed the newborn in his arms.

It was the smile of relief.

“What...” she releases him and takes several steps back in a daze. “What are you…not yours?”

Ned doesn’t answer her so she moves toward him again.

“Not yours?” Nothing. She barely registers slapping him, it’s weak and his head hardly moves but he doesn’t fight her on it until she tries again and he catches her wrist. “You lied to me!”

“I did,” he admits. “But I have never besides that.” She ignores his assurances.

“Whose? Brandons?”

“Lyanna’s.”

She feels the breath stolen from her lungs. She had been trying to replace some mysterious _sinful_ woman Ned loved only to find she’d been trying to replace his _dead sister_.

Ned was no more Jon’s father than she was his mother.

“Rhaegar is his father. They were wed if Wylla was to be believed.” which causes her to collapse into the spare seat in his solar. “If Robert knew…”he sighs heavily, ”I couldn’t let Robert know. The Wall is the best place. The North is in no shape to fight a war against the rest of the realm to protect him if the truth comes to light.”

“The rest of the realm does not matter! You could have told me. Maybe...maybe not at first,”They were no better than strangers that had bedded and had a son, “you did not trust me.” _Did not love me_ goes unsaid, “But during the Winter? After that? I proved my love for you and acceptance of him!”

“I wanted to tell you that first time I saw you feed him. I truly did but I was craven and I...I didn’t want to be hasty because of the cold. Nor did I wish to burden you with the knowledge. But there were some nights where that promise I made to my sister held little meaning when we were facing certain death.”

Catelyn wants to leave. She’d thought the boy a bastard and here she had cared for a royal.  
_Hated a royal._

Fed a royal from her own milk.  
_Nearly let a royal starve._

Looked over him when he was sickly. Prayed for a royal.  
_Wished that a royal would die._

Hidden in her home.

She wants to storm out and rage. But she looks out the window and catches sight of the Sept her husband had built for her. The Sept he built for his southron wife meant for his brother.

And she thinks about the Mother.

_I’ll beg my husband to give him a true name. Call him Stark._

Catelyn grasps at her chest, flooded by the sense of shame. It would seem the gods always meant to force her hand in this. To humble her near to her knees. Nothing about this was proper. Much of it treason and she wonders how the lessons from her septa left her woefully unprepared for the real world. For the foreign feelings and emotions that had dictated much of her life.

They always spoke of duty when they spoke of marriage. Rarely love. They taught of handling a household, running a castle that could more or less run itself. They didn’t speak of starvation and cold that ate at the bones. How to keep thousands alive with nothing.

She wonders if the boy...if Jon would have never been a marr to her had the septa never told her that bastards were of ill blood. 

And he is not a bastard at all...showed no signs of the terror they maligned the baseborn with. Nay he had been a good boy. A grateful boy. Nice and demure and he loved her children.

And she’d gone from spurning him to making him little more than a private vendetta against the gods and a dead woman.

“The first day I fed him,” she starts,” I had just lost our fourth babe.”

Ned is pained. She knows he had carried the children that didn’t make it in his heart as much as she had. But where he carried two, she carried three.

“Oh, Cat,” he says with years worth of understanding and sympathy. He pulls her toward him and tucks her head under his chin. She should have been finished grieving but she lets the fresh tears slide out as she feels the rise and fall of Ned’s chest. 

“When the King comes,” she says letting the pain flood away. “Ask His Grace to legitimise him. Give him your name. He’ll be safer under your name than he ever could at the Wall.”

“Catelyn-”

“Please,” she pleads. He looks at her as if measuring her certainty. But she can only sigh in relief. A weight she’d been carrying for years lifted in one word.

____

She listens from the door when Ned tells him. Robb is there too and she can imagine them embracing as they were want to do as children. Arya, he knows will be pleased as well when she hears in the morning. His words come out in a tumble. She can’t confirm his silent crying until she enters the room well after Ned and Robb have left.

“Lady Stark.” He wipes at his tear stained cheeks.

“You’re to be a Stark soon,” she says perfunctorily but she has a small smile to put him at ease. She opens her mouth to ask forgiveness but all that comes from her lips is “You only call me Mother,” not just in private. Not only in front of family. Always, ”if you wish it.”

He does not look surprised.

“Thank you, Mother,” It is not the first time he’s said it, but she thinks it is the first time he might mean it. He looks up at her. “Father told me that you asked it of him. May I ask why?”

Catelyn weighs it. She was afraid. A deep set fear that had burrowed into her mind for years that if he left a terrible thing would happen. To her, or her family, or the North, she knew not. A fear that the gods would punish her for not keeping her vow, even more than they had during the Winter. That after that Winter he had somehow maneuvered into an odd place between Duty and Family and her heart would not let her discard him.

“You are my husband’s blood,” she says echoing his words, now knowing the deeper truth behind them but unwilling to be the one to tell the boy. “And I have come to trust you would never betray your siblings because you love them too much.” He nods quickly. “And you are...you are family.”

There it is again, that hope in his eyes that has not been worn away by age and cruelty.

“Then may I ask you one more question?”he asks almost shyly. She just nods. “Will you...will you call me Jon?”

“Jon,” she tries it out and he brightens at his name on her tongue. Suddenly the craving for power over him dwindles in the presence of earning his genuine smile. She should have stopped there, but she had never been on the receiving end of one and she wished for it once more.“I will do one better. You are my son.”

Tentatively, she opens her hands to him and for once he does not hesitate to grab her in an embrace.

_My son._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope that ending wasn't too too "Hollywood". Thanks to all who read, left kudos, and commented!


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